GULF OF GUINEA CONSERVATION GROUP

GULF OF GUINEA ISLANDS' BIODIVERSITY NETWORK


BUSHMEAT MARKETS ON BIOKO ISLAND AS "HUNTING BAROMETERS"

John E. Fa*, Juan E. Garcia Yuste†§ and Ramon Castelo†

*Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Les Augrčs Manor, Jersey JE3 5BP,
UK., email jfa@durrell.org
† Asociación Amigos de Dońana, c/ Panamá No. 6, 41012 Sevilla,
Spain.

§ Current address: Proyecto Conservación y Utilización Racional de los Ecosistemas Forestales de Guinea Ecuatorial (CUREF), Ministerio de Bosques y Medio Ambiente, Aptdo. 207, Bata, Guinea Ecuatorial.
 

Abstract: Counts of the number of animal carcasses arriving at Malabo market, Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea, were made during two eight-month study periods in 1991 and 1996. Comparisons of the availability and abundance of individual species between years, showed that more species and more carcasses appeared in 1996 than in 1991. In biomass terms, the increase was significantly less, only 12.5%, when compared to almost 60% more carcasses entering the market in 1996. A larger number of carcasses of the smaller-bodied species, i.e. rodents and the blue duiker, were recorded in 1996 than in 1991. Although there was also an additional four species of birds and one squirrel recorded in 1996, these were less important in terms of their contribution to biomass or carcass numbers. Concurrently, there was a dramatic reduction in the larger-bodied species, the Ogilby's duiker and the seven diurnal primates. In order to investigate the value of using the Malabo market data the paper examines various possibilities to explain the drop in primates and the larger duiker. Such changes may have been due to: a) a significant drop in the number of hunters either because of implemented legislation or scarcity of larger prey; b) a shift in the use of different hunting techniques i.e. a change from shotguns to snares or c) a turning away from primate meat and duiker meat by consumers coupled by a greater demand for smaller game. Our results suggest that the situation in
Bioko may be alarmingly close to a natural catastrophe in which primate populations in particular, which are of international conservation significance, are being depleted to dangerously non-viable numbers.  Although surveys of actual densities of prey populations throughout the island is urgent, mitigation efforts by working with the human population on Bioko is even more fundamental.